Mammals

About the Collection

The Bell Museum's Mammal Collection currently houses approximately 19,000 catalogued specimens. Of these, the vast majority are standard, dry skin and skull preparations, but we have an reasonably large collection of full skeletons and a growing collection of fluid preserved specimens. Geographically, most specimens come from collections made in the United States and the majority of these are from Minnesota. Internationally, the collections are particularly strong in specimens from Argentina and Chile and from Mexico. We also have historically important collections from the Philippines and several dozen taxidermy mounts from African bovids. In addition to this research collection, we maintain a dedicated teaching collection that is actively used by courses at the University.